Talk:File types

Freehand and CorelDRAW?

Illustrator is the most popular vector graphics package in the continental United States, yes. But in Indonesia, at least, CorelDRAW (most of Java and Sumatra) and Freehand (in Jakarta and other major cities) rule. I don't know about the rest of Asia, but I suspect similar. At the very least one cannot doubt that these two apps are popular.

Supporting them would be good, methinks.

CorelDRAW in particular. Especially since CorelDRAW's basic interface was inspired by the original Acorn Archimedes version of Xara X, which some say also inspired Inkscape. It would suggest that the learning curve moving from CorelDRAW to Inkscape would be slightly flatter.

--Lemi4 07:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of Corel... How about Corel's PaintShop Pro?

There are a lot of users who use Corel's PaintShop Pro (PSP), including myself. It creates vectors too but only as a *.pspimage. It would be AMAZING if I could import those pspimages into Inkscape. I've been using it since it was owned by Jasc (I think it was version 3, so very ancient), long before Corel bought it... and ruined it! I have just upgraded to the PSP 2023 version and it still does not support export to svg. They evidently want to pin us down, forcing us to keep it so we cannot use any other (especially, open source) software. So 2023 can save images as: BMP, CAL, CALS, CLP, CUT, DCX, DIB, EMF, EPS, AI, PS, GIF, GIF, HDP, WDP, IFF, IMG, JP2, J2K, JPC, JPG, JIF, JPE, JPEG, MAC, MSP, PBM, PCX, PGM, PIC, PPM, PNG, PSD, PSP (PSPIMAGE FILES), RAS, RAW, RIF, RIFF, RLE, SCT, CT, JPS, PNS, TGA, TGA, TIF, TIFF, WBMP, WBM, WEBP, WMF. Notice that PDF isn't even supported. To make it worse, I can stupidly import an .svg, but I cannot save it as an svg. If I try to save my vector in any other format, besides the pspimage, it will auto-convert the image into a raster. It is SO annoying!

I've asked Corel for a vector export feature for the past 10 years only to be ignored, so I am sick to death of asking. PLEASE! Help us PSP users that are locked in place for vectoring. Inkscape's tools are much more flexible than what PSP offers. I just have so many files in pspimages that I cannot convert. So I'm stuck with it, for now. Again, please help us break out of this. MagnoliaSouth ^(talk) 22:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Latex via pstricks

I find that the "save as latex" leaves something to be desired. I was wondering what other people thing about this. Listed are my top items concerning this:

1. Since Inkscape cannot read a .tex file, saving as .tex qualifies as an "export" and not a "save as". Notice that after saving as .tex the active filename changes, and subsequent saves will be to the .tex file. You will thus lose the changes since you will not be able to work on the file. To avoid this one must save as .tex then as .svg to avoid losing the changes.

2. The actual export isn't 100% compatible with the original document. some things cannot be avoided: PS doesn't support transparency thus the alpha is ignored. However the user should be warned when the document has items with non-zero transparency. But other things are amiss: draw a white square with a white frame and export to latex and you will see that the result has a black border. Is this a bug? (I submitted a patch for this bug --Yfarjoun 17:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC))

3. Much of the point in exporting to latex is the ability of including formulas or at least labels. The best would be to be able to write text and have it _not_ rendered in Inkscape but rather passed straight through to latex with a \put command (or using psfrag). This will help users place formulae without having to lay it out carefully in Inkscape. Currently text is exported explicitly (strokes etc) to pstricks.

I'm willing to help with this, but I'd like to hear what people think about it first. --Yfarjoun 13:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)